Chapter 3: Something Beneath
The crack in the mirror grew overnight.
What began as a slender fracture had bloomed into a spiderweb of hairline veins—delicate, sprawling, reaching. Aria traced one with her finger that morning, just barely, and it felt like ice beneath her touch. It didn't reflect her properly anymore. The surface shimmered subtly, like water over stone.
She didn't know why she hadn't thrown it out.
She didn't know why she kept staring.
⸻
She skipped her morning tea.
The kettle stayed cold.
The window was open, though she didn't remember opening it. The wind came in carrying something thick and strange. Not quite the scent of rain, not quite the dust of heat—but something older. Something heavy. The kind of wind that knew things. The kind that listened.
It rustled the pages of a book she hadn't opened, one she didn't remember placing on her desk.
The Language of Roots.
She didn't remember checking it out. Or buying it.
It sat there, waiting.
When she flipped it open, the first page simply read:
Things grow where they are called. Even if they should not.
She closed it without reading further.
⸻
The streets were quiet that day. Not empty—but quieter. People moved faster than they used to. Heads down. Eyes forward. As if looking too long at anything might invite it to look back.
At the bookstore, Aria opened the door to find it dark.
The lights didn't respond at first. When they finally flickered on, she noticed one shelf had collapsed overnight. No storm. No earthquake. Just fallen. Books strewn like bones. Titles scattered in unnatural juxtapositions:
Dreams in the Soil,
The Age of Unraveling,
How to Know You Are Being Watched.
She knelt and gathered them slowly, deliberately. Dust clung to her fingers. The spines felt warm. One of the books trembled in her hand, so faintly she wasn't sure if it was real—or her own pulse echoing back.
At the register, the second tea cup was gone.
She hadn't moved it.
She hadn't touched it.
It had simply… vanished.
She didn't ask. Didn't speak.
But she looked over her shoulder more than once.
⸻
That evening, she passed the cathedral on her way home.
There were birds gathered on the rooftop. Too many. Hundreds. Silent. Motionless. All facing the same direction—toward the forest at the city's edge.
She didn't know birds did that.
She didn't want to know why they did.
⸻
At home, the crimson bloom had multiplied again.
Now there were four.
Their petals curled at the tips like they were listening. Their stalks bent slightly toward the mirror, which now shimmered faintly in the dark, humming a silence she could almost hear if she held her breath.
She stepped into the bathroom to splash cold water on her face.
She looked up.
And the reflection that met her gaze was smiling.
But she wasn't.
It was her face—but wrong. A little too sharp at the edges. A little too slow in its movements. Her lips weren't smiling, but her reflection's were. Delicate. Kind. Devouring.
She didn't look away.
The smile widened, gently.
And then, without blinking, the reflection mouthed three silent words:
"You're almost ready."
Aria stumbled back, breath caught somewhere between her chest and her throat. Her hands were shaking, her legs light. But she didn't cry. Didn't scream.
She simply sat.
On the cold tile floor.
She sat there for what might've been hours, listening to nothing. Watching the steam fade from the mirror's edge. Watching her reflection return to normal, as though it had never changed.
As though it was waiting for her to forget.
⸻
Later that night, as the city slept, something stirred beneath the floorboards of her apartment.
A soft creaking. A sound like something shifting its weight.
Something not quite alive, not quite dead.
And from the bookshelf in her room—
—where the four-headed bloom now leaned forward like it was praying—
—came the faintest whisper:
"Soon."
Let me know when you're ready